25 replies to this topic

[maggiethecat]

Be brilliant here.

[dumpling]

Best/Cleverest description of your mother's home cooking and the effect it has had on your life.

[GordonCooks]

"The illustrated guide to fraternity food hi-jinx"

[guajolote]

Use four star restaurant language to describe fast food.

[KateW]

Write a "gourmet" menu for a poor starving college student (tongue in cheek or serious)

[Chad]

Hmmm, topics:

Describe your significant other or a co-worker like you were writing a wine review. "He's a busy little clerk, precocious but never forward. Fruity, yet flaccid . . . "

Write a restaurant review as though it were a letter to Penthouse Forum. "I never thought I'd be writing to you, but this experience was so amazing I had to send it in . . . . turgid meat . . . dripping juices . . . ripe and succulent . . . etc." You get the idea.

Write a sonnet to a vegetable. Remember, 15 lines of unrhymed iamic pentameter.

Try your hand at a food related haiku. We should probably just go ahead and give this one to Jinmyo .

Describe your worst restaurant experience. Extra points if there's fire, something blows up or there's a bathroom involved.

What's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten? Describe it.

Write a commercial to sell dog/cat food as though your pets could understand it and were the actual purchasers. Dog 1: "Hey, is that a chunk of gerbil in there?" Dog 2: Yep, AND bits of dead fish!"

Describe a food item as though it were in the J.Peterman catalog.

Create a new, food-related Olympic event. Pie tossing? Celery javelin? Frying bacon naked? I can hear Jim McKay now, "Look at the height on that soufle. I think he's got the record!"
(BTW, I tried to get Speed Smoking included as a demonstration sport last time, but they ignored me. I think that standing outside when it's 10 below, wearing thin dress slacks with snow soaking through the leather soles of your shoes while you try to Speed Smoke a cigarette would qualify.)

That's all for now.
Chad

[JohnnyH]

Plan a menu for a dinner to be given at the White House for George W. and Laura Bush, along with 10 of their close friends. Then write menu descriptions using language you think the president would most comprehend, appreciate and enjoy.

[CityCook]

sorry, I'm new. to where would one submit entries for any of these topics? to this same board?

Edited by bratt23, 28 July 2003 - 02:37 PM.

[Chad]

sorry, I'm new.  to where would one submit entries for any of these topics?  to this same board?

Well, there are separate forums (fora?). The writing assignments are posted and described in one, the submissions are posted in the other ("Smackdown Entries," where you are now).

In this case, our writing assignment is to come up with the next writing assignment, so you don't want to submit an entry for any of the proposed subjects just yet. But if you have an idea for a cool food-related writing assignment, post away.

Chad

[CityCook]

Thanks Chad!

OK: Establish a basic personality for each ingredient in a simple recipe, and describe how they come together (or stubbornly remain separated) through the preparation process and in the final product.

[jhlurie]

Suggest that a group of people compete to help come up with new Smackdown topics. Wait... sorry that's been done!

Wait, seriously...

Create a pitch for a food related TV show. Ham it up as much as possible.

[zilla369]

Plan a menu for a dinner to be given at the White House for George W. and Laura Bush, along with 10 of their close friends.  Then write menu descriptions using language you think the president would most comprehend, appreciate and enjoy.

I vote for this, so far!


My entry: Describe the backstage catering rider of your favorite band/musician, and the resullting spread.

[zilla369]

another one:

"Foodie Pyramid"

Create six foodie categories for the $25,000 Pyramid and list the clues before ultimately revealing the categories. example:

which one is medium rare again?
is this boulliabaisse supposed to have scallops in it?
can you hold the rice on that risotto order?
man, it's hot in here!
do you have time to make me some chicken tenders?
what happened to my dave matthews cd?

THINGS A WAITER MIGHT SAY TO A LINE COOK

[NeroW]

Write a "gourmet" menu for a poor starving college student (tongue in cheek or serious)

Hey, yeah, somebody please do this.

[maggiethecat]

(BTW, I tried to get Speed Smoking included as a demonstration sport last time, but they ignored me. I think that standing outside when it's 10 below, wearing thin dress slacks with snow soaking through the leather soles of your shoes while you try to Speed Smoke a cigarette would qualify.)

That's all for now.
Chad

I'd win by three lengths. Try twenty below, Little Black Dress, snowstorm, pantyhose, high-heeled sandals. Smokers: Dumb but Strong.

[KNorthrup]

(BTW, I tried to get Speed Smoking included as a demonstration sport last time, but they ignored me. I think that standing outside when it's 10 below, wearing thin dress slacks with snow soaking through the leather soles of your shoes while you try to Speed Smoke a cigarette would qualify.)

That's all for now.
Chad

I'd win by three lengths. Try twenty below, Little Black Dress, snowstorm, pantyhose, high-heeled sandals. Smokers: Dumb but Strong.

Sounds like something from Romy & Michele's High School Reunion.

[Chad]

Oooh, oooh, another one:

Celebrity endorsements gone awry. Describe the pairing of a food-related item with a hideously inappropriate celebrity spokesperson.

If you'd like, include a snippet of the commercial/infomercial with the celebrity pitching the item . . . "Hi, I'm Jeffrey Dahmer for A-1 Steak Sauce" or Anthony Hopkins pitching "a nice Chianti."

How 'bout Divine Brown for no-smear, flavored lipsticks? For those who don't recall, Divine Brown was the hooker caught in flagrente with Hugh Grant. When I saw the photo, I thought Flip Wilson had returned from the dead.

This has possibilities.

Chad

Edited by Chad, 29 July 2003 - 01:42 PM.

[fresco]

Write a "gourmet" menu for a poor starving college student (tongue in cheek or serious)

Hey, yeah, somebody please do this.

I've also daydreamed about doing a really low-rent local cable channel food tv program, aimed mainly at students, called The Foodbank Gourmet--based on bargain ingredients foraged and found.

[NeroW]

(BTW, I tried to get Speed Smoking included as a demonstration sport last time, but they ignored me. I think that standing outside when it's 10 below, wearing thin dress slacks with snow soaking through the leather soles of your shoes while you try to Speed Smoke a cigarette would qualify.)

That's all for now.
Chad

I'd win by three lengths. Try twenty below, Little Black Dress, snowstorm, pantyhose, high-heeled sandals. Smokers: Dumb but Strong.

Yes. I have done this.

Only I refuse to wear pantyhose. So no pantyhose for me.

[jhlurie]

In honor of NeroW, here's another idea:

Write a food related paragraph in Rex Stout's style (in other words, Archie Goodwin describing Nero Wolfe describing it). Obviously this has already been done here to some extent by Maggie and Dave, but it could be opened up to the general membership, and judged by these two experts. I wouldn't even claim ownership of this idea, since of course these two actually came up with it and I'm simply pointing out that it might also work as a "Smackdown."

Of course the success of this would TOTALLY depend on how many Stout readers we actually have here.

Also: If we want crazier than the "Food TV pitch" idea I gave before, how about a movie pitch which somehow has to involve food as a central point? Examples? A horror movie where a giant zucchini attacks Manhattan, a romantic comedy set inside a Starbucks, a time travel story where somebody goes back in time and stops the first ox from being domesticated, etc.

[Nick]

I didn't think it would taste good.

It didn't.

[snowangel]

(BTW, I tried to get Speed Smoking included as a demonstration sport last time, but they ignored me. I think that standing outside when it's 10 below, wearing thin dress slacks with snow soaking through the leather soles of your shoes while you try to Speed Smoke a cigarette would qualify.)

That's all for now.
Chad

I'd win by three lengths. Try twenty below, Little Black Dress, snowstorm, pantyhose, high-heeled sandals. Smokers: Dumb but Strong.

Yes. I have done this.

Only I refuse to wear pantyhose. So no pantyhose for me.

I don't do pantyhose either, ever. For me, its at least 20 below, requiste snow storm, no socks and birkenstocks.

Back to the contest -- tongue twisters.

[John W.]

Feeling/thoughts/absolute seething hatred about Rocco's new show...



haiku style.

[Dryden]

Create an elimination-style reality TV show with various cuisines as the contestants (a la "Paradise Hotel").

Develop some rules and pick a winner.

Italian and French team up over their mutual love of lemons to eliminate the non-lemon using, yuzu-loving team Japanese , who when asked "What dishes do lemons really, really not go with?" answers "Well, at Nobu, they put yuzu on every dish that's ever been served, so..."

[dbrociner]

The waiter is the devil.

You're on a diet, trying to be good at a restaurant. You order and the waiter brings you:

[John Braise]

Patent a cooking technique.

"A method by which liquid water is heated in a vessel..."

"An apparatus used to..."

You get the idea.

Prepare to sue for damages.




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